Last Night I Dreamt of the Doctor
by meb1980
Summary: just a very short story that I might expand one day. I like the idea of characters coming back to travel with the Doctor after doing other things. This could be any Doctor. Even the first Doctor would have known about our current technology


1Last night I dreamt of the Doctor. It was happening with more frequency. As my grief for Brandt softened I found my thoughts returning more and more to the past and to the Doctor. I'd felt guilt at first. Surely I should be remembering my husband, the times we shared. I think however, Brandt would understand. He'd always understood about the Doctor.

The family had gone home now. Brandt's sisters and brothers back to their busy lives. They still holophoned me nearly every day and were pressuring me to move in with at least one of them. It was hard for them to understand someone wanting to be on their own, wanting to hear silence.

In my dream we were running. Running was a large feature of life with the Doctor. Running from this, running to save that. I'd joked once that he ought to install a running track with an obstacle course in the Tardis, just for practice. He already had.

We were running down a corridor that kept changing, blurring in texture, shape and size, yet still we ran. He had my hand. "Don't look back!" He shouted as we careened around a corner. Inevitably we hit a dead end. As we turned to face our pursuer the Doctor grinned at me. That grin, that maniacal, joy spreading grin. Oh the feeling I used to get from that smile, that everything was going to be okay. No better then okay: Brilliant. Fantastic. I woke up before the monster reached us. I never saw it properly, just a shadowy darkness, barely pierced by the light of the sonic screwdriver. The last thing I saw was The Doctor's face, grinning into the dark.

I've assumed the dreams are just a byproduct of my grief for Brandt. Escapism from the day to day reality of living without him. I had twenty-five precious years with him. I'd come to this planet, so far from Earth, to be with him. I'd left the Doctor for him. That was why I was sure Brandt would understand. He'd met the Doctor, he knew about the intoxication, the mystery. But he also knew that when it came down to it, I chose life with him.

Where was the Doctor now? That was the problem with time travellers. He could land in my front yard right now and not look a day older than when we said goodbye. Alternatively, he could land here and I wouldn't recognize him. He could have regenerated several times by now. Would he recognize me? That's a bit vain I suppose, more importantly would he remember me? Over his long, long life he has met so many people. Also, I knew that with each regeneration, though the memories stayed, the feelings associated with them could fade. What if he didn't like me anymore?

This was of course all academic. I had no way of contacting the Doctor anyway. And the chances of him coming back into my life were incredibly small. He had all of time and space to run in after all. But if I could, would I want to? To travel with the Doctor again? I wasn't too old. I was an excellent shape for my age, I ate well and most importantly: ran everyday. Could I leave this planet, the place that had been my home for all these years? The truth was that without Brandt, there was very little to hold me here. With no children, there was no reason to stay. I think I would like to see Earth again, to see the blue sky and to hear birds. I'd always missed the birds.

I've been avoiding packing up Brandt's things for some time now. It seemed like the final erasure of his presence from my life. I decided to start on items that were ours, not his. The sort of things that we probably would have got rid of together. Besides, you don't live twenty five years in the same house without accumulating some stuff. It was time to simplify. I had to start thinking in terms of 'one'. And one person does not require five boxes of Hollintine decorations.

It was a slow process, almost every item evoking some kind of memory, but I was making progress and had cleared several boxes. That's when I found it. It was just an innocuous box, smaller than the others. It was what was in it that was special. It was rectangular, silver and cool in my palm. A cell phone. My cell phone. In the bottom of the box was a piece of paper. Fingers trembling, I picked it up seeing Brandts' spidery hand writing.

"Someday you might need him."

That was all it said. Through tears I remembered. I'd been yelling at Brandt, trying to make him understand that I wanted him. I wanted to be with him and I didn't care where. He'd been worried that I would regret my decision, miss Earth, miss the Doctor. As a gesture, I'd thrown my phone away, sending it spinning into a nearby field.

"See, I don't need any of that, I just need you." I'd said passionately. Brandt, much more sensible than I, must have retrieved it later on. He'd known that one day we might need the Doctor.

Once I got a grip on myself and blew my nose several times, I regarded the phone again. It looked just the same, but would it work? Slowly I flipped it open and pressed the 'on' button. It blinked to life. The "boom-chaka-chaka" of the start up chime startled me and then set me to laughing. I'd chosen it when I'd first got the phone, I'd thought it was "cool".

Though I knew the Doctor had done something to the phone, I was still amazed it was working. Slowly I cycled through the contacts' list. Some of the names I remembered; Friends, co-workers. Others I couldn't remember at all. All these people I had known in that old life. I had said a hurried goodbye to some of them the night I had left Earth, that crazy night I'd met the Doctor. They probably wondered what had happened to me.

Scrolling down, I found the one that I had been waiting to see all along. TARDIS. I stared at it for a long time, the what-ifs swirling in my head.

Eventually, almost on their own, my fingers pressed the buttons. On the other end, a phone began to ring…


End file.
